Fake vs Real. How to Spot a Fake Diamond

I traveled to NYC and met a friend at Del Fresco’s where she insisted we have a drink.  I ordered a Dirty Martini straight up with extra dirty on the side, and MAN, that was a good Martini!  When we left, it was about 10:30 p.m. and the guys that sell fake designer bags had lined the streets with their goodies spread out on blankets. My friend and I stopped to look at what the street vendors had to offer. She was hesitant, but one of the bags had caught her eye. Since the original would have set her back a good $3,500, she negotiated a little bit and bought one for $60. The next day in actual light, we studied the bag and saw exactly why they sell them at night. The quality just wasn’t there. I told her the bag should meet its maker so with some peer pressure, she tossed it in the trash. I had a thought that evening. Is it as easy for the average person to spot a fake diamond as it might be to spot a fake designer bag?

Judging by the hundreds of customers with jewelry to sell who come to us every month who say, “ I don’t even know if it’s a real diamond, but I wanted you to look at it for me”, there is a lot to be said for the trained eye vs. the untrained eye. There is a tremendous value that comes with having proper testing instruments to test stones, and the knowledge and years of experience to interpret the results, which is one of the great features at Green Hills Diamond Brokers. When you want the answer How to Spot a Fake Diamond – Ask the Experts.

Whether you are selling to us or buying from us, we are all about a transparent transaction.  We enjoy educating our customers about what they have or what they are looking to buy. Recently, a client came to us with three rings to sell.  Two of the rings were set with lovely, round brilliant cut diamonds. The third ring, however, immediately prompted us to say, “That stone is not a diamond.”.  “How do you know?” she asked. We brought out a hand magnifier and showed her how to use it. “The fake stone is scratched and chipped in a way that a diamond doesn’t scratch.”  She could see for herself that where the planes met in the fake stone, it looked rounded and slightly bumpy, full of scratches and chips from top to bottom, whereas, in her brilliant-cut diamonds, the facets looked crisp, sharp and perfect. 

Because we are one of the largest estate and vintage jewelry buyers in the state of Tennessee, working here is like a treasure hunt every day.  You just never know what’s going to come through the door. We have people bring in their often-inherited jewelry boxes filled to the brim with costume and fine jewelry. In that box is always a charm bracelet with an Eiffel Tower on it somewhere. We sit with them and sort through the treasure box determining what is real and what is not, what they want to keep and what they don’t. There’s usually a surprise or two dug up from that mountain of jewelry. 

Sometimes you are just not sure what it is: animal or vegetable? Tanzanite or sapphire?  That’s when we can pull out the big guns, like the gemological instruments: the refractometer, the polariscope, the dichroscope, the ultraviolet lamp.  Ooooh, sounds fancy! Well, it kind of is, but it’s also fun.  

 We also purchase luxury watches and these need to be authenticated as well. Something as simple as the weight of the watch can be a dead giveaway, telling us if it is real or a fake. Also, our fancy “timegrapher”, which we also call our time machine, will test the beats per minute to see if anything is off. 

Hallmarks. We see a lot of them because we buy and sell designer jewelry like Cartier, Tiffany and Co., Van Cleef and Arpels, etc. With our expertise in designer brands, we know what they should look like. If once in a while we should ever get stumped on a unique hallmark, we have a trusted network we rely on.  

You don’t need to guess!  Whether you just want to discover what you have or buy or sell, bring it to the experts at Green Hills Diamond Brokers and we’ll take care of the rest.